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A humble request for help from the arcHELI Community and a pledge to secure the forum's future.- Will (stardotstar)

There are three parts to this post.

Firstly, for those of you who don't know me: I am famous for posts that are short, sweet and to the point.

And for those of you who *do* know me: Yes; that's bullshit!

1) What's been going on...2) What going to happen now...3) How you may be able to help me and arcHELI...

1) It's been a long time... Believe me I feel it more than anyone.

I've not flown a heli in what must be 6 or 7 years.

Barely a week goes by without me missing the hobby - so much has changed it feels like it's truly left me behind.

The end of the line for me was when I cancelled my TDR order.

Since 2012 I have faced the harsh realities of the corporate world in three consecutive mergers.

Each one has left me redundant, or forced into a sideways move that I never imagined, and certainly wouldn't have planned.

But that's what they say, right? Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.

Throughout this time I have continued to float Sourcepoint, my small internet and IT consulting business, through a few loyal customers and the trickle that Google Ads have rendered through arcHELI.

Despite being completely "hands-off" on the forums I have maintained a priority to see that arcHELI stays up and in the hands of good custodians.

You all know who they are, and to the mods, admins and loyal long standing members I say yet another heart felt "Thank you".

The site started in 2003 and anyone who knows me knows how much it (and the hobby) means to me.

The recent shift to the new board was largely managed and then maintained by a new team of dedicated Heli-men and a proper thank you to them is due.

When the database crashed recently I was not in a position to respond as I would normally have done, and for a short time it has looked like the site might be grounded for good.

2) Overnight however I have resolved to make another concerted effort to get arcHELI back in the air and on the air.

I would like to see my original wish to be able to host the site without advertising or membership fees realised and established in a way that guarantees its future.

That future cannot depend on one person and so I want to open discussions about how we can build a consensus based admin team and ultimately move the whole site off Sourcepoint's hosting to an appropriate and agreed platform where key admins and moderators collectively can manage and maintain it.

How this would be funded and organised I do not yet have any idea, but this is why the arcSSG was established and a similar group should now be reconvened and discussions started.

Tonight I have run a lot of optimisation and maintenance on the database and I think everything should be working correctly - however I am not an expert on SMF. Nevertheless we will get there.

Please continue to liaise with your friendly admin and mod team while things get sorted.

3) I need to ask the arcHELI community to help me out, please, if you can.

I am embarking on a radical career/lifestyle shift and need contacts, referrals, advice and support to make it happen.

In return I will refocus as much of my time and ability as necessary to achieve the next phase of arcHELI, guaranteeing it community ownership with a non-commercial charter.

In short, if any of you work in the Earth Moving, Excavation and Construction game, or, if you have solid contacts there I would really appreciate hearing from you.

It's not appropriate or necessary for me to explain my motivations or current plans because this post is already too long and it's personal; but, if you think you can help along these lines please email me at will@linux.com or text/call me on 0405 195 902, it could really help me out of a bind I'm up to my ears in.

I am turning to the arcHELI as the community I know, founded on mutual support, love of fine machines and respect, so I am humbly asking for anyone who might have the kind of background or contacts described above to touch base so I can explain a bit more and hopefully, push through what has been a pretty textbook case of post-industrial disease (to borrow Mark Knopfler's wonderful phrase!)Something like buying into, and being thrilled by the idea that:"Everyone these days will have more than 13.75 jobs in their lives, changes careers on average 4.25 times before they are in their mid-40s, which incidentally, are the new mid-30s - oh, excepting that with respect to the career bit and being able to actually change careers and get any one of those other 10.75 jobs - it's more like the new 60s".

Thank you all for reading this far, or at least skimming to this sentence and I hope to join you again, not only in the forums but eventually at the FIELD!(I hear heli's are making something of a comeback in the DRONEage.